Used Car Mazda 2 Test Drive ... White Smoke = Blown Head Gasket?

amp281

Member
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Mazda 2
Dear mazdas247,
I do not have any experience with these vehicles but I am interested in purchasing a Mazda2. I test drove a 2012 Mazda 2 automatic today with ~6X,XXX miles. The car didn't seem to want to accelerate past 60 MPH. The best I achieved was 65. Halfway down on pedal would floor the car to 5K rpm, otherwise would seem to decelerate if past 60MPH. In other words, didn't seem normal. 5 minutes after I got off the highway, white smoke was pouring from the tailpipe. The dealer was about 3 minutes down the road from this point so it wasn't a problem returning. The salesman told me they would inspect the car and let me know what the issue was. Obviously at this point, this car is off the table for me because that is simply unacceptable.

I was told the usual, 100 point inspection full certified etc etc.

My guess would be head gasket based on quantity of smoke, white color, and no burn odor like oil or gas would produce. I also would assume the prior owner knew about the issue and escaped it by means of trade in.

I had little intention on buying this one in particular because it was an automatic, but I was very interested in a manual model.

I would appreciate any guidance as I do not want to get an unreliable car. I loved everything about the car until this point.

Is this a common problem for these cars and should I go with a different make/model? Do these cars have a temperature gauge? How many people have had blown head gasket or white smoke? I also did not see any temperature indicator to suggest overheat nor any check engine light, but in truth I wasn't familiar with the layout having only driven the car a total of 8 minutes.

Thank you in advance,
amp281
 
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These cars have idiot lights. Blue means cold, red means hot. Even the Auto can easily hit 90+mph so yes, the one you drove had SERIOUS problems. No, these cars are super reliable with nothing more than oil changes. I have 44k on mine and only had a shift cable replaced (due to problems with a certain brand of short-shifter, not the car's fault) and oil changes. I drive my car like it's the end of days, too.
 
Literally the only real "failure" of any significance I've heard about on these cars is either A) B-spec race cars that see 20k+ track miles before failure or B) turbocharged stuff that blows up because of pushing the limits.


Only other issues are occasional oil leaks(oil pan gasket, easy repair) really.


FWIW I'm a technician at a MASSIVE used car dealer and have only seen a handful of them for ANY problems whatsover. Like two leaking oil pans, one bad window switch, and that's it. Otherwise all maintenance.
 
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